No Holiday for Americans

Thanksgiving is not yet here, but the Christmas holiday season is already paraded everywhere as retailers try to stimulate business. The consumer based capitalism we have been depending on has hit a bump. It could not have come at a worse time. If this isn't the perfect storm, it's frighteningly close to it! What a time for a new President to take office.

President-Elect Obama is discovering, I suspect, that promising all things to all people has its consequences; they are showing up. With a re-run of the Clinton administration materializing as I write, he is wisely laying a foundation for immediate action in January. Critical times demand swift action. These people know how it's done, and they are not a frightening bunch.

But what happened to change? Where are the new faces he promised, to replace those tired, lobbyist-loving oldtimers he spoke of? And while I admire his courage in stocking his administration with Clintonites, I wonder how long the honeymoon can last. I cannot visualize Hill and Bill not clawing for ever more influence and power. Who will be stronger? Can he channel their talents, or will they run him? Perhaps he envisions this bunch as the advance team, to be replaced relatively quickly once this transition is accomplished.That's how I'd be thinking, I suspect.

His smooth, unvetted path to victory has left him owing everyone...from left to center. All of them have expectations, and they are impatiently waiting for results. The big question may be how well he can use the huge network he has built through the internet. If he can mobilize it to help him overcome the various wings of his party in the Congress(and in his Cabinet?) as they seek to have their way and not his, he may succeed. That will work only if it is a personality based network, not a results based network!!

And if it is a personality based network, to what degree would the public want him to develop it?

While we are all tired of politics and election news

While all of us are rightly concerned with the economy as it is affecting our families and our futures.

While we are all hoping to find a brief relief from our worries and fears over the holidays.

Americans must now actively involve themselves in watching the way the government performs in this transition and beyond it.

We will get the government we deserve.